Russian editor fined for printing interview with sacked gay teacher

Share this

A court in Russia's Far East has fined a newspaper editor for publishing an interview with a gay school teacher who defended homosexuality as normal.

Alexander Suturin, editor of the Molodoi Dalnevostochnik weekly, was ordered to pay a 50,000-rouble (£874) fine on charges of violating a controversial law banning gay "propaganda" among minors, according to the Interfax news agency.

The law has drawn strong international criticism and calls by gay activists and others for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics, which run from 7-23 February.

The court in Khabarovsk, a city on the Amur River on the border with China, found Suturin guilty because he published an interview with teacher Alexander Yermoshkin, who lost his job because he is gay.